Through the bitter Days
by JuweWright
Summary: Set after Kate's death paralleling episode 1 and 2 of season 3. Abby and Tony facing the death of Kate try to cope with their feelings. Thank God they don't have to face this alone. Slight Tabby but more friendship than anything else. Harmless. Will have two parts.
1. Chapter 1

**Through The Bitter Days Part I**

_A./N.: Here's another bit of Tabby stuff. I started writing it after watching the last episode of season 2 and first two episodes of season 3. I thought the feelings of the others on the team when faced with Kate's death just didn't come through as much as I would have liked them to. But there were a few really cute moments and this is based on some of them. First part will be following Abby, second part will be following Tony._

She was talking to Kate. She had done that quite a lot recently. Well "recently" being only a couple of days. But it felt like months, years, ages. It was weird. They had really become friends although Kate was such a posh girl and she was just the little black moth. And she knew Kate had liked her as much as she had liked Kate. And now Kate was gone. Well, not even that. Kate was lying in one of the fridge-drawers downstairs. She had been there a couple of times and looked at the dead body. Nothing had happened. She had not even started crying although she cried a lot lately. No. This body downstairs might look a lot like Kate but it wasn't her any more.

Abby knew that McGee had not been down yet. He was afraid. He thought it might look messy. but it pretty much just looked as if Kate was sleeping and had not seen the sun for a long time. She had seen Tony go down a couple times. They had met in the hallway, exchanged a glance, not said anything. She had not spoken to Tony for days. For some reason none of them could find the words that would have made it better for both of them. She knew he had liked Kate, liked her a lot actually. More than he would ever admit, more than he might even know. She would never forget what he had looked like when him, Gibbs and McGee had come back from the shooting. He had been white as a sheet and he had been trembling ever so slightly. He had not said anything which was so weird. Gibbs had been going all frantic and had been shouting and swearing all day telling everyone who wanted to hear that he would strangle the bastard with his own hands if he got hold of him. Gibbs had liked Kate too but Gibbs had handled it in a better way. He had turned all his feelings into anger. And anger could give you strength, it kept you moving, whilst sadness just overwhelmed you and froze you.

Kate – the imaginary Kate she had been seeing for the last couple days – told her to put up her ponytails. Abby was not Abby without her ponytails. True. But she had not wanted to be anyone this morning, therefore she had left her hair the way it was. She only noticed she was crying again when the first tears ran down her cheeks.

"Abby?"

Tony had come in. He was alone. And he looked not only alone but devastatingly lonely. His face was not pale any more but he was still wearing his mask of no-feeling-at-all.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded and wiped her tears off as quickly as she could.

"I'm okay. I just have to do my ponytails and I'll be fine."

He took a couple of steps towards her, hesitated again.

"Are you really okay?"

"Yeah, yeah…", she turned around and got up to walk over. "I… just… I…"

"Were you talking to her?"

"I was."

"I am talking to her all the time. It's kind of weird, though."

"I miss her, Tony…"

He sighed and pulled her close, hugged her. And the tears just came again and she started sobbing like a school girl. She was waiting for a sarcastic remark, anything that would be so typically Tony that it would make her laugh. But instead she felt his chest heaving.

"I miss her too, Abbs."

It sounded a lot not like Tony this sentence. It sounded wet and… was he crying? Tony? She took half a step back to take a look at his face. His eyes were red and watery. Finally, she thought, finally he's able to let it out. And she hugged him again.

She could not say how long they had been standing there in between a beeping PCR machine and a rotating centrifuge, holding each other close to keep each other from falling apart and breaking to pieces. Apart from the noises from the equipment and their sobbing there was complete silence. And then, a bullet hit the shelf next to her right ear and made the glass burst. She screamed.

Tony reacted instinctively and threw her to the ground protecting her with his own body. For a couple of seconds they remained on the floor, wondering who was shooting at them and why. She could feel Tony's weight. He was heavier than she thought and incredibly close, but it didn't feel bad to be that close to him. His breath cooled the tears on her cheeks and made her shiver.

"Get off me!", she whispered.

"Okay", he awkwardly clambered to the side, then made her sit down in front of one of the cupboards out of the way for anyone firing through the window.

"What was that?", she asked and noticed her voice was way too high to not sound hysterical.

"He's after you now", answered Tony and put his arm around her whilst pulling out his revolver with the other hand.

The door flew open and the next moment, Gibbs was sitting next to them.

"I was walking down the street in front of the window when it happened", he said. "Only wanted to get me a cup of coffee."

"Gibbs, he's not after you."

"If he'd been after me he'd have had me now", said Gibbs and frowned. "He's trying to kill off my team first."

Abby shivered.

"I'm afraid", she said and wanted to hit herself for sounding like a baby. But Gibbs just pulled her towards himself and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm not gonna let him have you", he said. "I'll protect you, I swear. DiNozzo?"

Both men got up and went to the door. Abby saw Gibbs lips move. Didn't he know it didn't make any sense to whisper as long as she could see what he was saying.

"Stay with her, DiNozzo, will you? She's in shock. And I don't want her to leave the building or go anywhere near the windows until I've got the bastard. I'm not gonna let him shoot my whole team."

Tony nodded. Gibbs turned on the spot and vanished whilst his right hand man came back and sat down on the floor again. She was still shivering and he pulled off his jumper and handed it to her without saying anything. Thankfully she pulled it over her head. It smelled like Tony. A mixture of aftershave and a bit of pepperminty shampoo. And a slight bit of sweat.

"What's that beeping thing?", he asked after a while.  
"PCR machine."  
"What does it mean?"

"It means the DNA sample has been replicated enough times to now be able to run a screen on it."

"Will the screen help us confirm that Ari was Kate's murderer?"  
"It might be helpful."

Tony got up and started piling up books on one of the tables. After a few seconds Abby understood what he was doing.

"Done", he said after checking his structure. "Now there's no way of getting a bullet anywhere but into that pile of books through the window. Carry on with the screen."

He did not say anything or ask anything whilst she was pipetting the enzymatic reactions she needed for the DNA screen. He just kept out of her way and watched with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

He was wearing a black shirt and dark blue jeans. The usual designer-stuff. She sometimes hated tony for being so friggin stylish. He was a nice enough guy and absolutely awesome at times and she knew he liked her a lot as she was the one he had chosen to look after him when he had come back to work after the plague. He had not admitted to anyone else how bad he really felt. But he did not play a part when he was with her, he did not act like the big bad chauvinist in her company, because he trusted her completely. Trusted her with his heart.

"Okay", she said when she had set the time for the enzymatic digests to incubate. "We have about two hours. We should get something to eat. I don't know about you but I have not eaten for more than 48 hours and I think Gibbs will murder me when I pass out before he's got the results of this."

He nodded slowly.

"Yeah, I guess, I should eat something, too."

He looked lost again. Food. One of the things he and Kate had been frequently teasing each other with. Abby sighed, went over and took his hand.

"Come on. We'll need to highjack the canteen, I guess, as Gibbs won't let me out to buy a take-away."

They ran straight into a pale-looking McGee in the hallway who looked completely baffled when he saw they were holding hands.

"What… er… how… er… why?"

Tony immediately loosened his grip on Abby's hand, but she didn't let go of his. There was nothing embarrassing about this.

"We just decided we wanted to go eat something in the canteen and we are going together because Tony is babysitting me because I was shot at about an hour ago and I am official still in shock", she said. "You coming with us?"

McGee stared at her. He seemed not to have understood a single word.

"You've still not been downstairs have you?", asked Abby. He shrugged.

"Oh dear. Want one of us to come with you?"

He shook his head and walked on.

"He's going down to the mortuary now", said Tony with a glance back over his shoulder.

"You should go after him", Abby let go of his hand and pushed him towards the door. "Make sure he doesn't faint, or throw up or anything else which we will need to explain to Ducky later."

Tony seemed to hesitate.

"But…"

Abby smiled.  
"I will stay right here and not move an inch, okay? There are no windows anywhere in this hallway so I am quite safe and sound until you come back to shield me against the mischief of the world again, oh my faithful knight."


	2. Chapter 2

**Through The Bitter Days Part II**

_A./N.: So here comes the second and last part. I went a bit away from the original material in the dialogue in the mortuary but I hope you won't mind. Enjoy and leave a comment if you liked it ;-)_

"So you see it's not that bad after all. I told you she looks fine. Just a bit pale."

Tony had found McGee in the mortuary where he had been looking at Kate's body. Probie looked up when he heard his voice and shrugged.

"You're right. I was freaking scared of this, but it's really okay."

Both stood there for a couple of seconds. Kates face didn't show any feeling. That was the thing about dead people that made them seem so inhuman, decided Tony. Even when people slept, their faces usually showed some kind of feeling. They looked calm, happy, agitated, horrified, depending on what state of sleep they were in and what they were dreaming about. But when people died, their faces lost all expression and emotion and went all waxen and mask-like. In Kate's case that mean that he didn't even recognize her any more. Yes, he knew this was Kate and all, but she was not the Kate he had known, just a shadow, an empty box with all the good stuff gone that had been inside.

"Ready?", he asked when McGee finally moved again. The younger man nodded.

"It's not bad, but it doesn't really help either, does it?"

Tony shook his head and pulled the sheet over his colleagues head before slowly sliding her back into the fridge.

"You know what helps", he said. "Talking to her seems to help."

McGees eyes grew wide.

"Don't tell me you do that, too. I am doing it all the time, imagine she's standing around somewhere. Abby almost punched me today because I was not paying intention to what she was saying."

Tony grinned. He would not tell this guy that he had imagined Kate in her Eve's costume earlier on. Before that girl had showed up and completely embarrassed him. What was her name again? Shiva?

"I won't ask what you imagined if it distracted you from Abby", he grinned. "It must have been good, though."

McGee blushed. Tony slapped him on the shoulder and then pushed him towards the door.

"Talking of Abbs, I left her standing in the hallway to see whether we'd have to mop you of the floor or needed to call in a psychotherapist to help you cope, but as you seem to be stable enough I'd rather get up to her again."

McGee frowned.

"What exactly is that all about? You and Abby I mean."

Tony smiled and waved nonchalantly.

"Oh come on probie, stop clenching your fists and grinding your teeth. Abby was almost shot earlier on and I was there to save her life and so Gibbs decided it'd be my job to keep her from harm until he's got that bastard."

McGee pulled a face and pressed the button for the elevator.

"But you were holding hands…"

"Oh probie, we're not in primary school any more all right? I am Abby's friend. We've been friends for longer than you have been on the team. She's like my sister."

Kate or Kate's ghost or whathever he could call his imaginary Kate who had just decided to show up wearing something that she could have borrowed from Abby's wardrobe – black mini skirt and dark red very tight blouse coming with massive leather boots - shook her head and lifted an eyebrow.

"You sure about that?", she asked. "About the part with the little sister? You think I never noticed? The only reason you're not hitting on her like you do with every single other female in the universe is that you like her so much more than anyone else you are massively afraid she'd reject you."

Tony gave her an annoyed once-over and stepped into the elevator. Arguing with ghost-Kate did not lead to anything. And after all… she was not that far away from the truth.

Abby had always been sacred ground. He usually never went for goths, but Abby was different, she was funny, witty and made him smile just by being there. And she had seen all the movies he quoted. Every single one.

They had met for a few DVD evenings and it had always been so much fun because she did not mind if he put his feet up on the table, drank his beer out of a bottle or wore a shirt he had been wearing when chasing a criminal earlier and which smelled of old sweat.

He remembered what it had been like to come back from his sick leave. The only place he had felt safe to collapse and show how unfit he still was had been the forensics lab: Because she made him feel at home, because he did not need to pretend anything when he was with her, because he knew she'd accept his weakness as she accepted all his faults and idiocies without flinching.

"There you are. That took ages. I am starving. McGee, you all right? You look okay. I told you she has not turned into a brain-eating zombie, didn't I?"

She had been waiting in the hallway as she had promised. After hugging McGee –which for some reason let the little envy-bell ring in Tony's head – she snatched her guardians hand and pulled him towards the canteen.

"I need food. And caffeine. But food first."

A couple minutes later she was diving into a plate full of Spaghetti which was almost as big as his own. Her lipstick and the red sauce were smeared around her mouth. She looked like a kid at a birthday-party.

"How the heck to you do that?", she asked when he curled a couple of spaghetti onto his fork without using a spoon. "If I try to do that, the stuff will fly all over the table and sprinkle the whole room with red dots."

"Practice", grinned Tony and smiled. "And a bit of Italian blood. My parents taught me how to do this as soon as I was old enough to hold a fork. It's not that difficult. Look, these are two spaghetti, you put the fork across and then you curl and use the plate instead of the spoon. As soon as you've got a hang on that you can try it in the air, just don't do it too quickly because otherwise you will sprinkle the whole room with red dots nonetheless."

She tried but failed miserably.

"Whatever you are doing it's not curling."

He reached over with his hand and made hers make the right movement to neatly curl the spaghetti up. He realized that in any other situation this would have been a romantic moment. But as she didn't even seem to notice, he decided not to think about it anymore than she did.

Kate's ghost had appeared again and was watching them with a sarcastic smile.

"Tame as a loyal dog", she said. "I always noticed that."

"Oh shut up", he thought and noticed that he had said the words out loud when Abby looked up.

"Are you talking to Kate?", she asked as if talking to a dead colleague was the most normal thing in the world.

"Yap", Tony said. "As much of an annoyance in death as she was in life."

"And you still like her", grinned Abby. "I sometimes think you liked her especially because she was that annoying to you."

He lifted his hands above his head.

"Caught guilty."

She smiled flipped her fork and made four spaghetti fly through the air and land on the floor.

"Damned. I can't do it. I'll just stay with the spoon for now. Too hungry to lose half of my food to Newton's law."

"Newton?"  
"The guy who invented gravitation."

Tony sighed. That was one more point with Abby. She might be as much of a mate as could be and she was beautiful in a strange way but she was also terribly clever. Intimidatingly clever at times.

"Sorry", she said suddenly and reached over to grab his hand.

He looked up.

"Sorry for what? For making a mess with the tomato sauce? I usually don't clean the canteen in my free time, so I am probably the wrong guy to apologize to."  
"Sorry 'bout the geek-speak. I know you hate that."

"I don't hate it. It's a part of you. I don't hate you, so how could I hate the geek-speak?"

She didn't smile back when he grinned but stayed completely serious.

"You get all defensive and very Tony-like when confronted with geek-speak. Which means you pull up all the walls and defenses you have and you usually don't pull them up when you're with me. That's how I know. Sorry."

He sighed. There was not appropriate answer to that. He could have denied it but that would only have proven her point so he didn't say anything.

It wasn't until he had finished off his plate that he noticed she was still holding his hand.

"We should get back to the lab", she said, when something in her pocket started beeping. "The enzyme digests are ready."

They strolled to the lab and Tony played a tetris-like game on one of her computers whilst she was running the DNA screen. It took another two hours until she was ready for the day.

Tony called Gibbs who – judging from the noise in the background – was driving somewhere and asked what they were supposed to do.

"Is it safe for Abby to go home?"

"Probably not", Gibbs seemed to think for a second. "And neither for you, I fear. He'll want to kill the women on my team first but we can't be careful enough. McGee is at his parents place and I told him to leave his car and go with one of the spare ones. I guess you could go to a hotel if you use false names. Or you can sleep in the office which should be safe. But don't go home. He'll know our addresses."

"Where are you going?", asked Tony and could feel the head-slap through the phone.

"None of your business, I'll be okay."

"All right boss."

Tony hung up and shrugged.

"Hotel or office", he said when he saw Abby's questioning look. "No going home."

Abby looked around.

"Hotel", she said to his astonishment. "I just don't feel safe enough here at the moment. And I … it's also because of Kate."

They took one of the spare unsuspicious cars which meant a crappy VW which worked with a hand-shift – which was the only good thing about it, Tony loved hand-shifts . They drove to a random hotel Abby had looked up on the internet and which was not too cheap but still easily affordable for both of them.

Half an hour later Tony slid the key card into the door lock and made it klick open. He switched on the light. The toilet was fitted out with a shower and looked okay enough. He went straight on into the main room and swore.

"What?", Abby had come in behind him, carrying her spare-clothes-bag she always kept in the lab in case she had to work for days without end and her farting hippo.

"It's a double bed", explained Tony. "I explicitly asked for a twin room and they give us a double. Is the world crowded with idiots?"

She looked at the bed and sat down on one side.

"Well, so I don't mind that it's a double bed", she said with a shrug. "We know each other. We are friends. We've got two pillows and two duvets and I will kill you if you try to steal mine. I guess we will be fine."

Tony stared at her.

"Are you serious?"

"As serious as can be. There's nothing to it."

And without another word she pulled off her t-shirt and got an old knee-long nightgown out of her bag. When she loosened her hair she looked like the white woman in one of those horror movies.

Tony went to the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. She went in after him, locked the door from the inside on her way back, pulled the curtains closed and lay down next to him, hugging the hippo which farted happily.

"Abby?"

She turned her face towards him. She looked different when she was not wearing the makeup. More vulnerable. Younger. He noticed he had never seen her without her makeup before. This was too weird.

"I'm glad you didn't take that bullet today."

"Oh, Tony, you're so sweet."  
She leaned towards him and kissed him on the cheek. Not knowing how to react he hugged her. She didn't seem to mind but snuggled up next to him. Tony sighed, his hand stroked her arm and with every breath he inhaled the smell of her shampoo. Something with sandalwood.

Kate's ghost was standing in front of the television and looked down on the strange scene. Abby was fast asleep one arm hugging her hippo, the other hand loosely resting on Tony's elbow. Tony was also breathing slowly and regularly. Much slower and more regular than he had during the last nights when he had relived the shooting again and again in his dreams. He held Abby so close as if he never wanted to let her go again.

Kate smiled. There were two wounded souls healing again. It was time to leave them alone. They would be all right. They would find their way to carry on. There was still enough life to be lived for both of them and together they would be able to find a way through it.

Kate bent over Abby's side of the bed and kissed her friends forehead. Then she ruffled through Tony's hair and the next moment she was gone.


End file.
